One application of logistics management is the management of freight shipments. This process can be complex, and often requires coordination of multiple participants, including freight forwards, carriers, and other participants. In addition, the process often requires some form of shipment tracking, capacity control of cargo carrier routes, container control, terminal management, cash management, load limitations, consolidation, and other common freight management tasks.
To assist with this complex process, cargo management systems have been developed. These systems typically provide computing resources to process freight shipment data, and attempt to aid in scheduling, managing, and tracking various aspects of the freight shipment. These systems further provide a user with large amounts of data concerning various aspects of the freight shipments. For example, a cargo management system may provide a large list of cargo carriers, for example, but not limited to route data, to a user. Based on the provided data, the user schedules and books freight shipments.
To facilitate user selection, these systems may reduce the amount of data provided to the user by allowing the user to define search criteria. For example, the user may specify a product code that identifies the shipment as dangerous goods. In response, the cargo management system automatically rejects all instances of carrier types or routes that do not accept dangerous goods. As a result, the user need not consider any carrier type or route that will not accept the dangerous goods, and may more efficiently schedule and book shipment of the freight.
Due to the complexity of freight management, a cargo management system may also maintain a set of configurable parameters to aid the user in further identifying an acceptable subset of flights and other freight shipment items. The cargo management system applies the search criteria supplied by the user as well as the configurable parameters to automatically determine the set of matching flights for presentation to the user. Example configurable parameters maintained and automatically applied by the cargo management system include support tables that describe specific requirements for airports, product or service levels, pickup/delivery tables that identify required time offsets, and a variety of other parameters.
In the event these parameters are incorrectly configured, the cargo management system may provide an incomplete or otherwise inaccurate subset of flights or other shipping items to the user. Moreover, the user may not be aware that other acceptable items exist. As a result, the user may be forced to select sub-optimal flights or other freight shipment items. This problem may be compounded in that the cargo management system may retrieve flight information from a flight management system, which may similarly automatically apply configurable parameters to determine acceptable flights.